


Contrary to popular opinion

by voculae (northernMagic)



Series: Contrary to popular belief: drabbles from the workplace [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drabble Sequence, Gossip, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-23 05:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3756874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northernMagic/pseuds/voculae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No one believes Q because a double-oh’s instincts don’t include 'hide' and 'Q-branch'."</p><p>Four perspectives reacting to gossip, 100 words each.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Q: Strategy

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Čeština available: [Contrary to popular opinion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3801865) by [AveJa (SallyPejr)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SallyPejr/pseuds/AveJa)



It’s a strategic place to hide.

No one believes Q because a double-oh’s instincts don’t include “hide” and “Q-branch”. It’s not fair: Q had tried to chase him off with jargon, but he’d settled in like a cat in a sunbeam. When Eve comes down, Q has been awake for three days straight and isn’t prepared to argue that James Bond had been _right there_ on Q’s sofa, pillowed on his (stolen!) spare cardigan, while Bond’s card was charged by room service in Paris. (The things Q does for that man.)

It’s a comfortable sofa. The cushions are still warm.


	2. Bond: in the loving harbour of his heart

Q is fucking gorgeous. His code, not so much.

Q doesn’t believe Bond pays attention, because agents don’t differentiate between boffin and beautifully designed AI. It’s a pity: Bond has read incomprehensible poetry in almost any language, but there’s only one author whom he desires to understand. 

Eve helpfully reprograms Q’s console display. Bond fixes it, but not before Q-branch has published the ballad of a battered old warship being rebuilt in the loving harbour of his quartermaster’s heart.

Bond learns about code optimization, fashionably hideous plaid, and Q's exquisite euphoria when they kiss. He is a very thorough student.


	3. A happy ending

... gathered here today, some believe they’d damned themselves with sentiment. 

Let me be frank: those crafty bastards saved my life, and not because they were the best of the best.  
How intimately did James know Q's programming style, to catch that impostor? How on earth did Q discover...whatever he did to James's car? (Do I want to know?)

We can laugh now, because what's done is done. If they’d not eloped, would we have uncovered the poison in time?

They died together, the antidote preserved in their marriage certificate.

They were in love, but they _used it_.  
Learn from them.


	4. those crafty bastards ("Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.")

"What? Don't tell me you didn't sneak in to watch your first few funerals."

"I've never been interested in what they had to say."

"Even that time I found you with that anarchist chocolatier and we thought you died of --"

"For fuck’s sake. Hush."

“...James?”

“Yes, love?”

“Why is the minister under the impression that we‘re married?”

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“...Double-oh-seven, what did you do.”

“Nothing you wouldn’t do, my love.”

“I distinctly recall having to exterminate an entire hitherto undiscovered species of _Vicia_. ”

“Gloat when we get back home, Q. We have a lot to do before then…”

**Author's Note:**

> First drabble is inspired by [this prompt I saw on tumblr](http://consultingwriters.tumblr.com/post/115149372433/i-love-all-your-fics-and-prompts-anyway-this), and by the fact that _voculae_ can mean gossip in Latin.  
>  Chapter 2 title from "Seeking Sanctuary" (BtVS) by Pythia.  
> Feel free to remix this or any of my other works (with attribution) and drop a link back to me (voculae on tumblr).


End file.
